1) "Graphic designers make things look cool… you can hire them on freelance and save yourselves lots of money"

This is only a small part of the picture. Graphic designers do make things cool, but they are also make things easy to use through visual design. Visual hierarchy draws the eye to more important content and improves efficiency. Layout and visual alignment also help the brain organize information and reduce cognitive load. I could go on… don't sell graphic designers short.

2) "To employers and product managers out there – hire a UI/UX person to work with the users…"

You seem to propose (and I may be wrong) black-box or expert design, something that I personally have failed at numerous times. It was a hard lesson to learn. The best designs come from iterative meetings with input from cross-functional teams. I typically structure teams consisting of designers, developers, subject-matter-experts, and of course users. The designer's (or UX professional's) job is not to design in isolation, or generate every good idea, but rather to apply their skills, training, expertise, and talent to the creative input from everyone, and to synthesize that input into the best design possible.

Does that make sense?

I think what frustrates me the most is that people are beginning to heed the call for software/interface designers, but they don’t know what that means so they try to get a UI and Graphi Designer or a UI Engineer. I wrote something on that here: http://www.lindsaytabas.com/blog/?p=550 Would love to get your feedback!

"Quality is the best business plan" John Lasseter (Pixar, CCO)
"Pain is temporary. 'Suck' is forever." Jason Deamer (Pixar, Art Director)

From: http://twitter.com/rickwilliams/statuses/44001759...